THE "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its al -- the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profu bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole izure, progress and termination of the dia, were the incidents of half an hour.
"红死病"蹂躏这个国度已有多时。从不曾有过如此致命或如此可怕的瘟疫。鲜血是其象征，是其标志--血之殷红与血之恐怖。有剧烈的疼痛，有突发的头晕，接着便是毛孔大量出血而来的死亡。患者身上，而尤其是脸上一旦出出现红斑，那便是隔离其亲友之救护和同情的禁令。这种瘟疫从感染，发病到死亡的整个过程，前后也就半个小时。
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his prence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with the retired to the deep s
eclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impuls of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itlf. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All the and curity were within. Without was the "Red Death."
代汉者当涂高
但普洛斯佩罗亲王快活，无畏而精明。眼见其疆域内的人口锐减一半，他便从宫中召集了一千名健壮而乐观的骑士淑女，并带着他们退隐到一座非常偏远的城堡式宅院。那是一座宽敞而宏伟的建筑，是亲王那与众不同但令人敬畏的情趣之创造。宅院四周环绕着一道坚固的高墙。大门全用钢铁铸就。亲王的追随者们带来了熔炉和巨锤，进宅院之后便熔死了
所有门闩。他们决心破釜沉舟，不留退路，以防因绝望或疯狂而产生的想出去的冲动。宅院内的各种必需品非常充裕。有了这样的防御措施，那些绅士淑女们便可以藐视瘟疫的蔓延。墙外的世界能够自己照料自己。在这种时候去忧心忡忡是庸人自扰。亲王早就做好了寻欢作乐的一切安排。宅内有插科打诨的小丑，有即席吟诵的诗人，有表演芭蕾的舞女，有演奏音乐的乐师，而且还有美女和酒浆。所有的欢乐和平安都在墙内。墙外则是红死病的天下。
It was toward the clo of the fifth or sixth month of his clusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.
就在这种隔离生活的第五个月或第六个月将近之时，也就是墙外的瘟疫最猖獗的时候，普洛斯佩罗亲王为他的一千名追随者举行了一场异常豪华的假面舞会。
建筑安全员It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were ven -- an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on eit
her hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the ca was very different; as might have been expected from the duke's love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly dispod that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a clod corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. The windows were of stained glass who color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue -- and vividly blue were its windows. The cond chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the caments. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange -- the fifth with white -- the sixth with violet. The venth apartment was cloly shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here 弟子规儿童版
were scarlet -- a deep blood color. Now in no one of the ven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that protected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of tho who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to t foot within its precincts at all.
那假面舞会的场面真可谓骄奢淫逸。不过先容我讲讲举行舞会的场所。那一共是七个房间--一组富丽堂皇的套房。但在一半宫殿里这样的套房只须把各间的双扇门推开到墙边便能形成一条笔直的长廊，整个套房也就几乎一览无遗。可这组套房的情况却迥然不同，正如从亲王追奇逐异的嗜好中就可以料到一样。这七个房间的布局极不规则，所以一眼只能看到去掉页眉
建筑学学士一个房间。套房中每隔二三十米便是一个转角，每拐过一个转角都有一种新的效果。每个房间左右两边墙上的正中都有一扇又高又窄的窗户，窗户面对一条封闭的回廊，回廊绕这组套房蜿蜒迂回。这些窗户都镶有染色玻璃，其色彩随各房间装饰物的主色调之不同而变化。譬如说最东边的那个房间悬挂的饰物均为蓝色，那它的窗户则晶蓝如碧。第二个房间的饰物壁毯皆为紫色，其窗格玻璃就紫如青莲。第三个房间整一片绿色，它有的便是两扇绿窗。第四个房间的家具装饰和映入的光线都是橘色。第五个是白色。第六个是紫罗兰色。第七个房间四壁从天花板到墙根都被黑丝绒帷幔遮得严严实实，帷幔的褶边沉甸甸地垂在同样是黑丝绒的地毯上。但只有这个房间窗户的颜色与饰物的色调不配。它窗玻璃的颜色是殷殷猩红--红得好像浓浓的鲜血。在散布于或悬垂于这七个房间的大量贵重装饰品中，却没有一盏灯或一个烛台。这组套房中没有任何日光，灯光或者烛光。但在环绕这组套房的回廊里，每一扇窗户跟前都立着一个三角支架，从而产生出绚丽斑斓，光怪陆离的效果。但是在西间或黑色房间里，火光透过红色玻璃照射在黑色帷幔上的效果却可怕到了极点，凡进入该房间的人无不吓得魂飞魄散，以致宅院中几乎无人有足够的胆量进入那个房间。
It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock o
野有蔓草
f ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lap of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pau, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce cead their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was obrved that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and date pasd their hands over their brows as if in confud reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully cead, a light laughter at once pervaded the asmbly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lap of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred conds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.
金鹰节主持人
